THE ONE AND ONLY ROBBIE

When the nine-year-old me offered my autograph book to the driver of the car that had instantly become my favourite saloon car, I was doubly delighted to see that he had added the words ‘Ford Fairlane’ under his name. It became a permanent reminder that it was in 1968, after a support race for the Grand Prix in fact, that I first met the one and only Robbie. His fortunes that day contrasted with the results one year earlier, when he was dominant in the extraordinary ‘Custaxie’. This year’s car, the seven-litre Fairlane, might have looked fabulous in its Air New Zealand livery, but it provided nothing but frustration for its star driver. And have no doubt: Robbie Francevic always had star quality, regardless of what he was driving.

I never saw his initial exploits in open-wheelers but, unsurprisingly, he was instantly on the pace and his natural speed more than hinted that Grand Prix success was ahead. Sadly, a state-of-the-art F5000 was never at his disposal but it would have been a perfect match, given that Robbie seemed to thrive on plenty